Really don't know what to do! Spinning objects. Please help!

[margobambino]

Hello Ladies,
Some of you may remember me from another threat in which I mentioned about my worries about my 22 months old son's behaviour.
Recently I decided to ignore him when he starts spinning and it was going OK until today. He was spinning them for a few minutes, maximum 5-10 mins and than stop and doing something else. This afternoon he found one of his favorite spinning objects (a round CD box base) and got crazy. It carried it to everywhere he goes for 2 hours and span whenever he can even during his meal. Whatever I did I could not engage him with any different activity or play. He was stopping it for a couple of moments when I draw his attention to something else, and then going back to spinning it.
I have been trying everything to manage this behaviour but nothing worked. I even tried removing everything with a pottential spinning object but he ended up with spinning silly things like forks or spoons, etc. I really need your advice and experience. Please help!

Sorry about the typing errors above. Just being anxious and sleepless.
threat - thread
it carried - he carried
.....

I remember you.

Let him spin. He's not even 2. Things that spinning are fascinating, especially if you are very small and the world is new.

I still don't think this is anything to worry about - I spend a lot of time with preschoolers - several autistic, most not.

Get some sleep.

Hi Margo,

I wouldn't worry too much either.

Whilst spinning is sometimes an indication of problems such as Aspergers or autism, it isn't nearly enough by itself to warrant any concerns. It sounds like it is just something your DS is into at the moment because it is a newish skill he has learnt. If he has been doing other things despite finding spinning particularly interesting today then I wouldn't worry too much. He may even be doing it because he knows it gets a reaction from you.

Go back to ignoring him again and he will probably be bored with it again by tomorrow.

BTW, my DS went through a phase of tipping his buggy over (not while he was in it, obviously) and spinning the wheels. He'd sit for hours and watch them go round. The he got older and found other things that interested him more.

Thanks for remembering me Superbunny. Unfortunately he hasn't got bored yet . Today we went to a toddler group. As soon we entered the room he found a ball shaped baby toy (probably for 6m and under) and started spinning most of the time his face attached to the floor. He did not show much interest to anything else, and even he did go to a play house and a slide, he carried that toy with him and after a very short interest to those, continued spinning. Also on our way back home, he run looking at the fences and walls at sides.
In the afternoon, one of my friends and her 5 years old daughter visited us but my DS continued spinning and showed only little interest to the little girl.
I am planning to ask our GP a referral for an assessment.We have private insurance but not sure whether they include ASD assessment. Anybody has any experience with private assessments?

ask your gp for a referal for a developmental check at the local hospital, they will pick up a.s.d abd refer you on to a specialist if needed. if you are really concerned about autism, contact the national autistic society or google autism and read up on the traits and triad of impairment. if your ds is showing spinni?g as the only trait i wouldn't worry. i have 3 dd's, 1 is diagnosed with aspergers, 1 going through diagnosis now and my 20 mo is showing traits and will be referred at 2.5. a mom knows her dc so believe in yourself and get a referal if you are truely concerned. good luck x

Hi stevie74,
I have asked for a referral for a private assessment (we have insurance and private is quicker) and GP will do it. Spinning is not the only trait, he also runs while looking at objects at sides,also he shake his head in a certain way sometimes probably for visual stimulation. He is also inconsistent with responding to his name. However,his speech is quite good, he is pointing, usually has good eye contact, copies our behaviour. Pretends to speak over the phone, eat a toy cake, be a dog on his all fours, etc. He likes hide and seek and peekaboo type of plays very much. He is able to follow instructions (but sometimes doesn't want to), understands what we say, asks questions like "what's this?".

Just thought I would add with a couple of links in case they are of use: autism signpost service - in case your doc does not know of private diagnosticians and CHAT checklist in case you have not seen it before. all the best

www.autismdirectory.org.uk/Pages/Index.aspx?gn=292&tm=-1&gd=-1&ag=-1&ar=1&rs=-1

www.nas.org.uk/nas/jsp/polopoly.jsp?d=128&a=2226

www.dorsetforyou.com/index.jsp?articleid=357248

is interesting on childrens play schemas , also has ideas for ways to interest a child who is VERY into a particular schema ( like you boy with rotation) in "standard play settings"
Rotation IS bit of a b**ger to draw into other things, but for example they remind us that with cooking you could focus on whisking, and stirring for a rotator, while for a trajectory orientated child ( I have one of those) chopping may be more their thing. (its is, he could chop veg quite well before his 3rd birthday).

Some children show one or more schema very strongly in their play, some mix and match more and show no one schema more than another. The best toddler group we go to locally use schemas to guide their activity choice, they make sure is something to engage children using each of the main schemas. So while L is busy opening and closeing doors in play kitchen, K and R are sliding, J is up to his elbows in paint transforming himself, N is dressed up in swathes of material and E is spinning the steering wheel on a box car.
Containment, trajectory,transforming, enveloping and rotation schemas all happily catered for.

I couldn't read this thread and not respond.

Please don't worry about this, and don't stop him spinning or view it as 'negative' behavious. He is still very young, so even if it is an indication of something like asd he is too young for diagnosis and stopping him spinning won't make him better anyway. He obviously needs to spin, for whatever reason.

From a very young age DS has been obsessed with spinning, so much so that for the length of a washing cycle he could sit mesmerised in front of the washing machine at the age of 1yr. He still does and he's 6 now.

I realised quite quickly that spinning objects where a comfort to DS, and even if he had nothing to spin, he would just spin his hands round and round. He still does.

I decided to go with it and buy him any toys I could that involved some element of spinning, so he still had a variety of stimuli. It is a schema, and some children do get fixated on it, it's not always an indication of autistic spectrum disorder.

Buy him some poi (those spinning things with ribbon on them), spinning tops, all sorts of toy cars and vehicles (for the spinning wheels) toy washing machine, those salad spinners (one of DS's favourites), anythin in fact. I also found a tihng that you spin and add paint to and it makes nice patters on paper that DS loves doing (although your DS is a bit young for this now). yoyos, bits of string, glow sticks in the dark, loads of possibilities!

Sometimes when DS was younger and got stressed out or tired he needed to spin to comfort himself. When he's anxious or in new situations it helps calm him down.

He can sometimes go into a 'zone' when spinning and it's hard to draw his focus away, and I won't lie and say it has never frustrated, annoyed or worried me, because it has and it still does sometimes. It has also embarrassed me (once with a new boyfriend when he came down the stairs spinning one of my bras) and then there was the time he spun a carton of apple juice in a car full of prim aquaintances), and there was the time he spun a peice of pizza in a restaurant (toppings flew everywhere) but on the whole, it isn't a problem really.

Please don't worry, that's all I'm saying, and don't feel you have to stop him spinning, it won't do him any harm and can be put to good use.

Sorry, wanted to add that from what you have described, he does sound quite normal developmentally for his age. Certainly more so than my DS did at that age and he's fairly 'normal' now at 6 (altohug a bit different definately and with a few issues, but nothing that can't be effectively catered for).

Children develop in strange ways sometimes.

My ds1 had alot of aspergers traits.
He had his obsessions- numbers and letters. He wasn't very physical- he hated to be touched. he had all sorts of sensory issues and he had absolutely no imagination/imaginary play.

He has slowly changedover the years, and i'm sure he'd have a diagnosis if i'd had him referred earlier... but now at the age of nearly 6, he's just a bit eccentric.

Children change and they don't all develop in a fixed way.

HTH and reassures you a bit

oopsagain eccentric is the word I'd use to describe DS too!

I think that some kids are just on the edge of the spectrum.
on any given day they may be behaving as if tey are apsergers/autistic.. but when you add up all their stuff it doesn't altogether fir into a diagnosis.

he's less strange than he used to be.
And he's playing all sorts of imaginary games with the kids at school or his brother- but they are very immature somehow.
He's like a 3yr old in a 5yr old body with the emotional/imaginary stuff.

But due to his obsession with letters and number- he's the youngest in the class, but way way above the others on both reading and maths aparently.

Thank you very much UniS. The link you gave is really really helpful.
Overmydeadbody and Oopsagain, it is very good to know that other children like yours are also doing the similar things. My DS is fascinated by numbers and letters too. He is already able to count and recognise most numbers written. Also trying to sing ABC song with few mistakes. His imaginary play abilities are not that good though, maybe at the lower limit of average. I really liked your approach, maybe my DS will be a bit eccentric too. My husband and I have never been "normal" either.

margo - at exactly the same age, my ds became obsessed with my salad spinner. We had just moved house and it was now accessable to him in the cupboard and he loved it.

He would ask for it if he woke in the night. He would ask for it first thing in the morning. He could play with it for up to three hours at a time. Spinning it round, putting his socks in it, spinning it and lifting the lid, putting his toy cars in it, working the plunger with his bum. You name it, he spun it!

I got quite worried about it, but just let it go. I let him play with it whenever he liked and then a few months later, the obsession stopped as soon as it started.

Although the salad spinner was by far his favourite, he was drawn to anything else he could spin, like wheels on toys or tipping the buggy and spinning the wheels. He had a wooden walker with bricks in it and he would pile bricks on the wheels then spin them round.

He is 3.6yo now, and doesn't even really remember it tbh.

I am stunned after reading this thread as you could all be describing my ds.
He first got 'interested' in spinning around 9 months when he would sit in front of the washing machine and spin his hands from the start to the finish of the cycle. Aged 14 months he spent almost four hours on a train journey spinning the wheel on a Tractor Tom book, he only stopped to have a drink and snack.
The spinning continued with anything he could lay his hands on, he would lie on the floor watching things spin for ages. He didn't play with toys he either span them or 'ordered' them, becoming distressed if the order was broken. He also became very interested in numbers and clocks and could pretty much tell the time by age3.
The excessive spinning carried on until his last term in Nursery, and stopped almost overnight. He is in Reception now and still spins sometimes, he can't walk past an empty washing machine without spinning the drum. He is still strong on numbers and loves order and tidiness. He is the youngest in the school (5 on August 30th) but his Teacher told me he is 2nd in his class in terms of ability. He is definitely eccentric, but also very sweet and caring, he described himself recently as 'quite interesting' and he was right!
So I guess I'm saying try not to worry and embrace the eccentric.

My DS was like this too. All I can say is that I wish I'd listened to people tellng me not to worry about it too much. Eccentric, a bit strange, on another planet some of the time, and maybe as someone says just on the edges of the spectrum, but I spent so much time worrying about him, and comparing him to my older son, I failed to notice that actually he was growing out of some of these phases. While there are still things that worry me, and he still goes through obsessive phases, he's doing really well, he had an IEP at nursery but now he's on the gifted and talented register at school for both reading and numeracy. And more importantly is happy and well.

Very helpful, thank you!

I found YouTube videos of ceiling fans that my son likes to watch over and over. It helps calming him down when he does not have something to spin.

Hi any updates please